black gorse, blue tongue

With the silage made in June, the beginning of July gave us a chance to catch up on some of the sheep work and gather in the ewes for their ‘blue tongue’ vaccination.

‘Blue tongue’ is a disease that sheep farmers in this country had scarcely heard of until two years ago. However the disease that was once only found in Africa has spread north through Europe over the past few years, arriving in the UK in 2007. A vaccine has been developed to prevent sheep from contracting the disease ( which is carried by midges) And as reports from farms affected in Europe is pretty devastating, we’re pleased to have that protection. However the vaccine only covers 1 strain of the diseases and there are a total of 23 strains.

The gathering of Morte Point coincided with a gorse fire on the point. The long dry spell had left the scruby areas tinder dry. That shouldn’t be a problem, but when someone emptied their barbeque ashes onto the gorse the result was a major fire.

The Woolacombe fire brigade spent all of one night trying to put out the blaze, but with the fire burning deep into the peaty ground under the scrub it was an almost impossible task. Over the following 5 days they were called out a further 6 times, as each time there was any flare up reported, they are required to answer the call.

The gathering of the Morte Point flock wasn’t without incident either. On the north side of the point there is an aut crop known as the three cornered island, the most inaccessible place to gather sheep from. Although they rarely graze there it does seem that whenever we need to gather there are a few sheep there, determined to avoid capture.

I sent Jake to bring them up as it takes a very careful dog to drive them along the top of an 80 foot cliff. However the ewes were in no mood to cooperate and found a steep incline on which to hide

We eventually got them moving again and the flock headed for the pens

Vaccination itself is a quick operation and in little over an hour the flock were back out onto the point. Ready to try and avoid capture again on the gather to wean the lambs in a couple of weeks time!